Hobby Lobby Employees Could Lose Health Insurance Coverage

Hobby Lobby is one of many companies who claim that the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”, is forcing them to do something they believe is unethical. In the article “Hobby Lobby: The Cost of Not Offering Health Insurance,” Andrew Abela and Irene Kim discuss the Supreme Court case Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby’s argument is that the federal law has forced them to make what they call an impossible decision. They can either offer health insurance with coverage that they believe is unethical or they can pay fines to the government that they say could ruin their finances. A couple Justices have suggested that the company does have a third option which they haven’t considered. They could pay a $2,000 per employee fine and simply not offer their employees health insurance coverage at all. The Justices argue that the company wouldn’t be any worse off than with the first two options.

Hobby Lobby argues that in addition to paying the per employee fine they would also have to increase employee wages so that their employees could go out and purchase individual health insurance plans. But Justice Kagan said that whether the company chooses to offer health insurance plans that are against their religious beliefs or chooses not to offer health insurance to their employees and pay a fine, their costs will be just about the same. That is certainly debatable.

If the company were to stop offering health insurance plans to their employees, they would have to increase employees’ after tax pay by the approximate amount that it would cost for them to purchase their own health insurance. Premiums will cost more for a lot of individual and family plans than the discounted rate that Hobby Lobby would have received for a large group health insurance plan. In addition to higher premiums, individual plans typically have higher deductibles that they company will have to account for in their salary increases. Between the salary increases and the $2,000 per person penalty for 13,000 employees, the article estimates that Hobby Lobby will pay $60 million each year if they choose this option. That estimate is quite a bit more than the company would pay to offer their employees health insurance. But finances are not the only thing the company needs to consider. A loss of health insurance could decrease employee morale, even with a salary increase to pay for individual health insurance. The company also has a religious belief that they need to take care of their employees. Hobby Lobby will likely continue their fight against the federal government forcing them to offer insurance coverage for birth control that is against their religious beliefs.